Business
An ecommerce site is a business. Our Management & Finance category addresses online payments, funding needs, employee issues, merchant profiles, key metrics, multichannel and omnichannel strategies, cross-border analyses, inventory management, accounting topics, sales taxes, and much more.
Amazon & Marketplaces | B2B | Cross-border Selling | Finance | Fraud Prevention | Inventory | Local Business | Payments | Shipping & Fulfillment | Staffing-
Payments
Should Ecommerce Merchants Accept Bitcoin?
May 7, 2014 • Marcia Kaplan
Bitcoin, the best known of several virtual payment currencies, has made inroads into mainstream commerce, including brick-and-mortar retailers. Some ecommerce sites are already accepting Bitcoin and if you are considering ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
You’ll always lose a price war
May 6, 2014 • Jamie Salvatori
Competing on price is a stupid tactic because it’s easy. Any idiot can undercut his competitors. Making money with this tactic, however, is rare. Only a few companies can pull ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
Digging for gold: supply chain made simple
May 6, 2014 • David Sasson
During the gold rush of the 1800s, prospectors chased each other to find gold nuggets in rivers and mines all over the west. They were all chasing gold and the ...
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B2B
Ecommerce Key for Manufacturers and Distributors
May 5, 2014 • Dale Traxler
Many B-to-B companies are still not aggressively pursuing ecommerce. Most have an online presence — in fact, an extensive one. They likely have a corporate site, an online product catalog,
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Shipping & Fulfillment
How to Choose an Ecommerce Shipping Provider
April 29, 2014 • Gagan Mehra
Many merchants struggle with the challenge of shipping goods in the fastest and cheapest manner. There are several variables that determine the best shipping provider for each order. These include ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
12 tips to address declining ecommerce revenue
April 29, 2014 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
For many online retailers, business conditions are tough. What do you do when your sales are dropping and you can’t work out how to reverse the slide? Here are 12
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Payments
How to Identify Dubious Credit Card Processing Fees, Part 2
April 23, 2014 • Phil Hinke
Editor’s Note: This is “Part 2” of a three-part series. “Part 1” we published last month. The purpose of this series is to identify dubious fees that are commonly charged ...
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Business
Lessons Learned: Buddhist Search Inspires Lotus Sculpture
April 22, 2014 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
In the novel Siddhartha, author Hermann Hesse describes the spiritual journey of a man who meets Gautama Buddha in ancient India. Six years after reading Siddhartha in seventh grade, Greenwich, Conn.-born ...
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Finance
18 Ecommerce Crowdfunding Success Stories
April 21, 2014 • Sig Ueland
In “9 Equity Crowdfunding Sites to Finance your Business,” my article last week, I outlined leading crowdfunding sites that offer equity stakes in startups and small businesses. As a result ...
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Business
Recap of selling an ecommerce business
April 17, 2014 • Manish Shah
Every time I sell an ecommerce business, I write an internal summary with highlights of that deal. This includes statistics like: Asking price vs. selling price; Terms offered vs. terms negotiated between ...
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Finance
9 Equity Crowdfunding Sites to Finance your Business
April 14, 2014 • Sig Ueland
Thanks to the JOBS Act, startups and small businesses can now publicly raise equity funding via online crowdfunding sites. In September 2013, Title II of the JOBS Act went into ...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
SEO: Why Amazon’s Navigation Works So Well
April 11, 2014 • Jill Kocher Brown
Judging by the number of Google searches for which Amazon ranks, it’s easy to see that Amazon is doing a lot right when it comes to search engine optimization. It’s ...
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Business
Heartbleed Bug Impacts Online Retailers, Ecommerce
April 10, 2014 • Armando Roggio
The so-called Heartbleed bug is a serious flaw in some versions of popular, open-source security software used to protect encrypted data like passwords or payment card information during online transactions.
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Finance
Ecommerce Companies Raise Funds with New Approach
April 9, 2014 • Marcia Kaplan
Will equity crowdfunding ever become a reality? This alternative to the usual financing mechanisms became legal two years ago when Congress passed the Jobs Act in April 2012. However, the ...
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Merchant Voice
Growing an ecommerce company starts with ‘why’
April 4, 2014 • David Sasson
Business leaders speak about programs to improve customer satisfaction. However, we all deal with companies that leave us mostly dissatisfied. It’s rare that we have an experience, as consumers, that ...
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Business
7 Ways to Protect Ecommerce Customer Data
April 4, 2014 • Jerry Jao
One of the biggest mistakes that small ecommerce merchants make with data security is assuming that they’re too insignificant to be targeted by hackers. This simply isn’t true. According to Verizon’s ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
Are you really improving your site with this recommendation?
April 3, 2014 • Richard Stubbings
Across the Internet in forums and indeed on this site there is plenty of advice regarding how to improve your ecommerce business. Whilst all advice is offered with the best intentions,
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Business
March 2014 Top 10: Our Most Popular Posts
April 2, 2014 • PEC Staff
Each month we compile a list of the ten most popular articles we published that month, based on the number of page views. Here are our ten most popular articles ...
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Business
The real costs of starting a web store
March 30, 2014 • Jordan Lindberg
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” – Thomas Edison Although there are many ways to get an ecommerce store off the ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
Anatomy of an online scam
March 26, 2014 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Have you ever been scammed in a business venture? I’ve become a victim of one. What happened to me is typical, I suspect, of online scams. 1. The Scammers Seem Legitimate Online ...
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Business
B-to-B Ecommerce: How to Implement, Improve
March 26, 2014 • Dale Traxler
The number of mid-size manufacturers and distributors implementing initial ecommerce projects is rapidly increasing. Manufacturers are utilizing ecommerce to reach new markets, bring products to market more quickly, and protect ...
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Payments
How to Identify Dubious Credit Card Processing Fees, Part 1
March 25, 2014 • Phil Hinke
Editor’s Note: This is “Part 1” of a three-part series. My article last month, “Credit Card Provider Sued for Deceptive Tactics,” generated questions from merchants regarding the suit, its impact, and the hidden,
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Amazon & Marketplaces
Amazon Raises Fee for Prime Shipping
March 17, 2014 • Marcia Kaplan
After floating the idea that it might raise the fee for Prime shipping to $119 from the current $79, Amazon settled on a $20 increase, to $99 per year. In ...
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Business
How EBITDA affects valuation of ecommerce companies
March 12, 2014 • Manish Shah
I recently valued an Internet business that had a good looking website and all the desirable social media hooks with respectable follower and fan counts. The site has been in ...
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Local Business
4 Reasons Small Brick-and-mortar Retailers Need an Online Store
March 12, 2014 • Armando Roggio
Small, brick-and-mortar retailers should also sell online to stay competitive and meet customer expectations. Ecommerce and physical-retail commerce are merging; businesses that exist in shopping centers and malls are expected to ...
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Amazon & Marketplaces
Anticipatory Shipping: Amazon’s Approach to Influencing Purchases
March 12, 2014 • Marcia Kaplan
One Amazon obsession is faster package delivery. When CEO Jeff Bezos shared his idea of delivery by drone with 60 Minutes, many ridiculed him. Now Amazon has a new idea ...
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Business
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Merchant Voice
Does Facebook’s WhatsApp purchase affect ecommerce?
March 11, 2014 • David Sasson
This post does not address whether Facebook’s purchase of WhatsApp is a good one, though my opinion will be evident to the reader. There have been many articles written about ...
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Business
10 Questions to Ask Ecommerce Payment Providers
March 11, 2014 • Gagan Mehra
Accepting credit card payments is critical for ecommerce merchants. A payment provider should support a merchant’s payment needs, charge low fees, and scale as the business grows. Even though these ...
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Business
Staples Increases Online Efforts, not Brick-and-mortar
March 10, 2014 • Armando Roggio
Office supply retailer Staples announced March 6 that it would close 225 brick-and-mortar retail stores by 2015, in part, focusing investments and marketing on the online channel. The move may ...
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Business
Lessons Learned: Serial Entrepreneur Heels a Pain
March 6, 2014 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Like many serial entrepreneurs who build something from nothing, Jason Schultz was blessed with insight and good timing. Born and raised in California, Schultz began experimenting with Tandy and Commodore 64